Communicating Beautifully Through Email
Do you remember the websites of the ‘90s? Generic typefaces and animated gifs strobing brightly from the confines of a table? Good, because modern email design and development isn’t any different.
Due to the vast number of email clients, viewing platforms, and a blatant lack of standards, email development remains a brutal throwback. And designers are confined to system-safe fonts and table-based layouts because of it.
So, how does one “communicate beautifully” through email? Here are the basics…
Keep it under 600px.
About the only standard in email design is a max-width of 600 pixels. If one was feeling particularly difficult, they could argue this–but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Put it in a table.
The only way to consistently provide hierarchy in an email is to put the content into a series of nested tables.
Use system safe typefaces.
As previously stated, use system-safe typefaces like Helvetica, Arial, Times, and if you must, Comic Sans for live copy. Your email will be opened on a wide array of devices and these typefaces will display properly on most, if not all.
Plan for missing or blocked images.
Many email clients disable images on default and leave their users with views like this:
So it’s best to keep things like calls to action, promo codes, and buttons out of the images and to shake your copywriter down for compelling alt text.
Always design mobile first.
Stats say that over 50% of emails are opened on a mobile device which means that mobile design is no longer optional. Designing the mobile view first saves everyone the trouble of cutting content and/or compromising hierarchy as content reorders to fill the smaller screen.
Lastly, learn to choose your battles.
Since every email client wants to be its own unique snowflake, they each render HTML differently. Which means there’s no such thing as total perfection. What works in Gmail won’t always work in Apple Mail or Outlook. Or Hotmail. Or Yahoo. Or whatever else your dad is still using. And there will be minor variants across the board. Know your demographic and build accordingly; for example, if there’s no happy medium (which happens, a lot) let your padding fall short on Yahoo to satisfy the majority using Gmail, or vice versa.
Email design and development may never be effortless, but it certainly can be made easier by following these practices.
Tired of fussing with your business emails in-house? Visit www.thinkmoncur.com to see how the email extraordinaires at Moncur can help you take your email design to the next level.
